Supabase Has a Free Tier — Build Full-Stack Apps with a Postgres Database, Auth, and API in Minutes

#api #webdev #beginners #database

Supabase gives you a free Postgres database with a REST API auto-generated from your tables. Plus free authentication, file storage, and real-time subscriptions. No backend code needed — just create tables and your API is ready.

The free tier includes 500 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 50,000 monthly active users for auth, and unlimited API requests.

Get Started Free

Sign up at supabase.com
Create a new project (choose a region, set a database password)
Copy your project URL and anon API key from Settings → API

1. Auto-Generated REST API

Create a table in the dashboard, and Supabase instantly gives you CRUD endpoints.

# Read all rows from a "posts" table
curl "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/rest/v1/posts?select=*" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ANON_KEY"

# Insert a row
curl -X POST "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/rest/v1/posts" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title": "My First Post", "content": "Hello Supabase!", "published": true}'

# Filter and sort
curl "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/rest/v1/posts?published=eq.true&order=created_at.desc&limit=10" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ANON_KEY"

2. Authentication

# Sign up a new user
curl -X POST "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/auth/v1/signup" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "user@example.com", "password": "securepassword123"}'

# Sign in
curl -X POST "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/auth/v1/token?grant_type=password" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_ANON_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "user@example.com", "password": "securepassword123"}'

3. Python — Task Manager

from supabase import create_client

url = "https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co"
key = "YOUR_ANON_KEY"
supabase = create_client(url, key)

# Create a task
supabase.table("tasks").insert({
    "title": "Review pull requests",
    "status": "todo",
    "priority": "high"
}).execute()

# Get all pending tasks
tasks = supabase.table("tasks") \
    .select("*") \
    .eq("status", "todo") \
    .order("priority") \
    .execute()

for task in tasks.data:
    print(f"[{task['priority']}] {task['title']}")

4. Node.js — Real-Time Chat

import { createClient } from "@supabase/supabase-js";

const supabase = createClient("https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co", "YOUR_ANON_KEY");

// Send a message
async function sendMessage(userId, text) {
  await supabase.from("messages").insert({ user_id: userId, text });
}

// Listen for new messages in real-time
supabase
  .channel("messages")
  .on("postgres_changes", { event: "INSERT", schema: "public", table: "messages" },
    (payload) => {
      console.log("New message:", payload.new.text);
    }
  )
  .subscribe();

sendMessage("user-123", "Hello everyone!");

Free Tier Limits

Resource	Free Limit
Database	500 MB
File storage	1 GB
Auth users	50,000 MAU
API requests	Unlimited
Edge Functions	500K invocations/month
Realtime	200 concurrent connections

What You Can Build

Full-stack web app — React/Next.js + Supabase (no separate backend)
Mobile app backend — user auth, data storage, file uploads
Real-time dashboard — live data updates without WebSocket setup
Blog/CMS — Postgres as content store, auto-API for frontend
SaaS MVP — auth + database + file storage in one platform
IoT data collector — store sensor data with REST inserts

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